Anna climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. John opened it, holding a box filled with the broken bits of his guitar and shrugged. "Thought I shouldn't leave it back behind your bar and give patrons the wrong idea."
"What'll you do without it?"
"I've got more than one."
"You're that kind of musician?"
"Most days." John grinned, jerking his head toward the interior, "Come in."
Anna fiddled with her keys, sliding into the room as John rotated around her to close the door. As she went to speak her mouth dropped open to gaze up at the area. His hand landed on her shoulder and Anna jumped, her hands flailing to try and explain herself but only spluttered a response.
"It's not that great." John ran a hand over his hair, Anna noting the red gathering on his cheeks.
"It's fantastic." Anna shoved her keys into her pocket, shuffling along the shining wooden floors to view the raised loft level standing with metal struts that wrapped the room as a balcony. "How'd you do this?"
"I consulted an architect about how to get this place to work with your bar." John pointed back to the door. "If I make this the foyer of a bed and breakfast where the breakfast is downstairs, then I use it as a bit of a meeting place. Like a community center or whatever."
"What about the rooms?"
"Most of them have been retrofitted with twin beds and three of them have queen bed but they're still under construction." John shook his head, "It's all going to work together with deals for the bar and the restaurant."
"It's…" Anna stopped, taking a turn around the space. "It's beautiful."
"It's a bit like a coffee shop isn't it?"
"It's perfect." Anna walked toward an open area. "I'll assume this is where you'll have a decent number of cushy chairs."
"Exactly." John walked over to the wall, pointing at it and then two other spots. "There'll be three fireplaces here, here, and there to give it a comfortable feel."
"Not sure you need those in a place as humid as this." Anna paced the space, smiling, "But it's all about ambiance isn't it?"
"Exactly."
Anna narrowed her eyes, folding her arms over her chest. "What is it that you did before you took on playing the guitar in trashy blues bars?"
"I used to work as an architect and interior designer." John scratched at the back of his head. "It's what drove a bit of a wedge between Vera and I."
Anna cringed, "I do hope I haven't brought up bad memories."
"It's seems we've both got some bad memories where she's concerned." John turned to another spot, a corner under the balcony before he pointed upward. "Those were part of a design I used on a building in Edinburgh."
"Why the balcony?"
"More space. It's all about including people in a public space but without forcing people into a confined area." John walked the edges of the room. "It's about making people feel like they're involved with others but still keep their independence because no one wants to be too dependent on people."
"It's true." Anna followed him, working to counter his motions to investigate the space. "You wouldn't even know it was that derelict waste just a month ago."
"Time changes a lot of things." John tucked his hands into his pocket as they met under the larger platform. "It changes people too."
"What about this?" Anna pointed above them, her head tipped back and then focused on John. "What does this do?"
"I'll show you." John took the stairs, leading her up the metal staircase to the space. "It's where the fourth fireplace will go and the coffee bar."
"Forcing people to get themselves up stairs when they're already staggering?" Anna clicked her tongue against her teeth as she paced over the platform. "I guess a bit more exercise would be a wise decision."
"It's part of keeping this space open and available." John walked to the edge of the metal railing, opening his hands to it. "It's got to stay open to keep the atmosphere free."
"Outside while inside?" Anna moved up one more stair to walk the balcony that circled the room. "Enough space for small tables and spaces?"
"Exactly." John leaned on the railing, Anna stopping to do the same across the room from him. "Think it's too much?"
"No." She ran a finger along the metal. "I'm curious how an architect and interior designer got himself a reputation as a blues singer that's famous enough that people in my bar know you."
"Did you ever watch that American show Parks and Rec?"
"You've got to study the indigenous culture to assimilate with it." Anna pushed herself off the railing, finishing her walk around the balcony. "Why'd you ask?"
"You remember that character, Ron Swanson?"
"He's only the second-best character on the show."
"Second-best?" John put a hand on his chest, "I'm offended on his behalf."
"I do hope this means you're not about to grow a mustache to try and bring his spirit back." Anna paused, John mimicking her movements as he came toward the stair to the balcony. "It's not worth it to risk you looking like a pedophile or a Mexican porn star."
"Two things for that." John put up his fingers. "First, I don't look the slightest bit Mexican. Second, I'm definitely not a pedophile. And Ron Swanson's not even real."
Anna grinned, stopping to use the one stair to keep them almost equal in height as they stood as close as they could be without touching one another. "I thought you only said two things."
"I couldn't tell you there was a third thing if I wanted to surprise you." His eyes stayed connected with hers, their fingers twitching to brush with one another. "It'd ruin it."
"I could see that." Anna took a deep breath, letting the time pass as they just stood there. "But that's not the surprise I liked."
"And which surprise was that?"
"This." Anna risked breaking eye contact for a moment to wave her hand at the space. "This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
"It is beautiful but I'll have to disagree with you."
"Disagree about what?"
"About it being the most beautiful thing." John's fingers trapped hers, tracing over her hand and up her arm to stroke over the edge of her jaw. "You are."
"I don't deserve that."
"You do." John gripped harder, stopping her looking away as his hands cupped her cheeks. "You deserve this and whatever else I can manage to give you because everyone deserves to be loved."
"I've already wasted any chance I have at that." Anna put her hands over John's, sliding them down her cheeks. "And I wasted it on someone who doesn't love me back."
"If I thought that way then I would think that I wasted mine on Vera." John accepted her hands pushing his down but did not back away from her. "We've the capacity for great love Anna."
"Is this the royal 'we' or the two of us, specifically?" Anna's breath caught, her fingers tingling and flexing as if to grab his hands again.
"Which do you wish it was?" John waited but Anna could only shake her head. "The most basic, of all human needs, is the need to be understood and to understand. The best way to do that is to listen to them."
"That's beautiful." Anna wiped at her eyes. "Did you come up with that?"
"I wish I did, but no." John cracked a smile, his hand coming back to her cheek and this time she did not push him away. "An Indian actress said it."
"Who?"
"Aishwarya Rai Bacchan but we're losing the key point." His other hand took its former position and Anna clutched at his hands, trying to find a hint of stability. "The point is that you and I can understand one another in ways no one else can."
"How?"
"We've both made our mistakes loving people who didn't love us back. Worse, they didn't love us the way we deserve to be loved."
"Again, you're assuming love is something we deserve."
"We're not here just to shag and die, Anna." John took a deep breath, "I want to love you. To love you like you're a person and a princess and a goddess and as a human being."
"I'm none of those things."
"Then let me love your broken pieces back together until you feel like any of those things again." John's forehead rested on hers. "Please let yourself be loved by me."
"That's too hard." Anna sniffed, John's thumbs pushing away the tears making tracks on her cheeks. "It's too hard to love someone who wants to love you back because then, when you lose them, you've lost two things instead of just one."
"What?"
"If I let you love me then it'll hurt more when you're gone."
"I'm not going anywhere Anna." John forced her to look at him. "I'm not leaving you. I'm not like him."
"And this isn't because I'm afraid you are. This is because I'm afraid I am." Anna pushed his hands away a second time. "I'm hers, for the moment, and until we figure out a way to get me free I won't have the risk that she'll get you. I can't risk you. I won't risk you when want to love you so badly it hurts."
"Then trust me." John held her hands, abandoning all hope of keeping her close to him in the way he clung so desperately with the barest of touches to her fingers. "Trust that I know what I'm getting into."
"I shouldn't have even told you."
"It wasn't fair to me if you hadn't."
"It's not your burden to bear."
"And that's not your decision to make." John took a deep breath. "I deserve the facts so I can make informed decisions. I'm an adult and I deserve to be treated like one so I can make choices for myself. It's my life too Anna and this is my choice."
"To throw your life away in some shit town that serves as a backwater no one cares about with a woman who sold her soul to a servant of bloody Satan to work at a rundown bar ever on the edge of falling into the abyss? That's your choice."
"Yes!" John's shout startled Anna and he watched his teeth grit and eyes close while he steadied his breathing. "Because I don't see it the way you do."
"You don't see the despair the desperation to this?" Anna failed a hand out of his grip. "I'm being sued by the man who ruined my life, more than once, after I fought back when he tried to rape me in this very room. That's the way my life goes. That's par for the course and you're signing up for it to be your course too."
"I've never been good at golf but-"
"It's not funny John."
"And it's not your decision to make for me." John shook his head, "From the moment I met you, you've tried to bat me away, to hide me, to deter me, and yet something keeps drawing me to you. Something in you is determined to accept that you're of little worth and yet something wants me to stay here."
He managed a harsh laugh, pushing his hair back from his forehead. "I came here because something pulled me here. Something I couldn't describe if I had all the lyrics and time in the world. Something that wanted me at this bar to play those songs."
"It might've been Vera." Anna crossed her arms over her chest, a feeble defense. "She wants you and if she can't have you then no one gets you. That's what she told me."
"Sod her and sod you if you believe she's going to get in my way." John pointed at Anna. "Don't you think I know what my ex-wife feels like? I've had her claws in me, figuratively and literally, for a long time and I'm not ignorant of how she feels and what she means. I know what it is to be under her thrall and I won't let myself fall there again."
"Then what do you think drew you here?"
"Maybe the promise of something better. Something far beyond what I could imagine for myself." John would not blink or look away. "Someone like you."
"I'm no one."
"Then it's good that I'm no one either." John raised a hand but did not touch her. "You're more than you think you are. I knew that the moment I met you."
"Or I'm exactly as I appear."
"But you're not. You're just determined to think you are."
They stood in silence until Anna finally took a breath. "I don't know how to think of myself any other way. I've… I've spent so long under the weight of what I do for her, under what Alex made me feel, under what I became and now… I don't know how to crawl away from all of that."
"Then please," John extended a hand to her. "Let me help you. Let me help you see yourself the way I see you."
Anna flicked her eyes to his hand and then placed hers in his grip. He guided her off the platform and out of the space. They walked a short way down the hall and with a turn of a key in one of the bedrooms he had her inside. In the half dark, lit only with the bluish glow of the neon sign across the street to clash with the orange iridescence of the street lamps, John led her to the bed.
They stood close to it and, except for his grip on her hand, John did not touch her or guide her anywhere else. Without words, just staring at one another, he put the decision firmly in her grip. She could lead them forward or she could run. It was in her power.
Something was in her power.
With that, Anna reached up and slowly unbuttoned his shirt. He only moved when she guided him and did nothing to rush her or slow her motions. When she placed her lips on his skin or trailed her fingers delicately over muscles he stayed still. Each of her choices were her own and he remained the passive participant.
Except it was not the passivity of a mannequin being changed at a department store. Instead it was the active decision to be passive under the discovery of hands and lips and tentative emotions. The kind of passivity that had him sitting on the edge of the bed in a few moments after Anna stripped him, just waiting for her.
She took a deep breath and lifted her shirt over her head. The same shirt he dragged against a brick wall a few hours ago. Or had her popping the button on the jeans he dragged to her thighs before they had sex out in the orange light of the parking lot. The same orange light that gave them both a glow that reminded her of fake spray tans.
The grin on her face soon echoed on his, though she did not explain hers. He did not explain his either but she followed the confusion that furrowed his brow when she sank to her knees in front of him, still wearing her knickers and bra while he rose to the occasion. But whatever expression he wore, it vanished in pleasant surprise and a groan the moment Anna wrapped a hand around him.
The shivers in his body hid the nervous tremor in her hand. A tremor she fed into her motions as John's knuckled whitened in his grip on the bed sheets. Bed sheets she feared might rip when her other hand turned to holding and caressing his sack to counter her smooth, hard strokes over his thickening erection.
So she distracted him in other ways. Playing her tongue over his chest to care and lave over his nipples seemed to pull a moan from the back of his throat. When she nipped at the edge of his jaw or threatened to bite down on the column of his neck with the drag of her teeth, he let out a deep-throated growl. A growl that almost turned to a yelp if she licked at his head but only encouraged her to do it again. And then chase the other noises he let out when she dug her tongue into the slit there to try and find more of his taste.
His fingers moved from the bed when his hips bucked toward her for the first time. But Anna only hummed against his skin, continuing to lick and kiss over his arousal and abdomen while her hands never left their work. Each dig of his fingers into her hair, pulling it from the ponytail to let it whisper over them, spurred her on until she finally took him into her mouth.
Any thought of John remaining passive at that point meant he had to be a robot or made of stone. Given the rush of blood she felt under his skin, or the cling of his fingers to her head, neither of those answers was possible. Anna continued, trying to take him deeper and listening to his reactions while her own legs rubbed together to try and soothe the pulse at her core. A core she was sure might soon ruin her knickers.
But for as controlled as John was, with Anna's fingers moving over his skin, her hand still playing back and forth between his base and his sack, and her tongue helping her mouth coax every possible reaction from him, there was nothing more he could do. She held steady at the first taste of him, pulling to the edge to better manage his climax, and dug her nails into his thighs for support when his tugs at her hair and shoulders drove her internal muscles to clench. They rode through it together until there was nothing left but the quivering muscles of his body and the weakness in her own.
Anna used the nearest piece of clothing she could find, wiping him down as John grabbed at the bed to try and keep himself grounded. Her knees complained when she rose, the tingle in her lower legs and feet meaning she might want to consider a better position in the future, and the taste of him still in her mouth. She put a hand to his shoulder, to steady him or her she could not say, but it worked to push John back to the bed. In a moment she followed as one of his hands latched at her wrist to ease her down beside him.
She lay there, her legs shuddering occasionally as the blood returned to them, and let her fingers brush idly into his hair. He titled his head, kissing the inside of her wrist and then rolling onto his side to continue kissing over her arm. Anna frowned but John kept his pace slow, moving over her inch by inch until their mouths met.
His tongue darted forward, running over the line of her lips and then teasing Anna to open for him. For a moment he paused, tasting himself the way she still did, and then the breath sucked deeper into his chest. John's hand cupped her jaw to better slant his mouth over hers and gain the position he needed to ravish her with sensations between nothing more than his mouth and a stabilizing hand.
The distraction paid off as Anna gasped into the kiss, breaking it without meaning to, when his other fingers snapped the clasp on her bra. It hung loosely on her shoulders and he left it there so his fingers could come back to massage and knead and caress until Anna surrendered to the calming motions. In a moment she never thought she would reach, or enjoy if she did, sensual pleasure joined with sexual intention and her body calmed.
It was like entering another world, to feel so at peace and removed from everything that tightened her blood vessels and made her heart beat harder against them, from everything that gave her stress and heartache while being so alive and practically burning from the inside out. His kisses and touches left her tranquil and boneless while vibrating to her very core. The thump of her bra on the floor did nothing to distract her from the state of white noise that was the thrum of blood in her ears or the steady beat of her heart under John's skilled hands and mouth.
His lips mapped every part of her, learning her through as much tactile sensation as he could manage until there was nothing left of her but what he remembered. Each kiss to her breasts or the suck of her skin had her fingers itching to bury themselves in his hair but she could not even convince herself to move. There was nothing better than being under his care.
And what care it was. The gentle shift to bring her to the middle of the bed had her blinking at him. The same lazy blink he had when she finished him off. But it now seemed he gave it back to her with each kiss, as if he stole her energy and hoped to return it to her with each brush of his lips against her. His suck on her nipples coaxed noises from her throat and her instinctual reactions moved her to writhe and moan but no more than that.
Only her mind managed to escape the perfect seduction, to be free of the net of his adoration, and it abandoned whatever cognitive skills without a second thought. Instead of convincing herself to remain apart, to hide in some corner of her mind where she could watch from a distance and just submit to physical pleasure, she dived in. Instead of soulless, artless, emotionless motions given by randy men to a desperate woman, this was the deep affection of a man wanting to give her hope with every touch.
A hope she did not deserve but could no longer refuse. No more than she could refuse the kisses he left over her hips and abdomen. No more than she could fight back the waves of pleasure that only escalated and grew with each new kiss he left over her folds or the licks he made through them. No more than she could stop herself arching her back and crying out when he entered her with his fingers and drove her over the edge. No more than she could hold back the tide when he drove her to orgasm there on the borrowed bed.
In the haze of him kissing back up her body, Anna seized control of her hands enough to bring his face to hers. Then her lips to meet his. Then her legs to pull him closer as she confirmed the shadow of a thought about the state of his arousal.
It only took him a moment of pause before he submitted, sliding into her. They moved together, easily and at the pace he set, until Anna could no longer breathe. Her chest constricted, her eyes closed, and she forced herself to push past the emotions threatening to overwhelm her as she allowed him to give her everything. Everything and more.
Each of his thrusts targeted her. They were not for him to simply ease an internal ache. These were the motions of a man seeking to help her reach a high with him. As if he stood ahead and offered her a hand behind because he would not bear to leave her alone.
His kisses continued, from her lips to her jaw to her shoulders to her neck and even to her breasts, while Anna dug her fingers into his shoulders. It was like being tossed in a slow moving pool and yet the undercurrent still threatened to drag her below the surface. Part of her, the part convinced she could never deserve this if she worked a hundred years to do it, tried to fight it and escape. To twist him to climax first. But she fought it back.
Anna gave into it, gave into the sensation of John leaving his traces over every bit of her he could possibly reach, and then gave over when his fingers held her close while pushing deeply inside her. She tightened her muscles, letting primal reactions win out over old fears to leave her with nothing but the sensation of surrender. A surrender he followed her to a moment later.
Her fingers drew back and forth over his spine for a moment, tracing what she imagined where the ripples and dimples of skin and bone until John raised his head from her shoulder. He went to move but Anna tightened her knees at his hips and her arms around him. "Not yet."
"I'll crush you."
"I need it." She whispered, the darkness hiding the visible evidence of the tears leaking from her eyes. "Just for a minute."
John did not listen. Instead he turned them sideways, arms wrapping around her more securely, and holding her closer to him. Anna took her turn burying her head in his shoulder and cried. His hand now replaced what hers had done, the soothing motions rocking her to deeper sobs until she finally quieted.
He did not say a word, just continued to hold her until her arms loosened slightly. They shifted, trying to find places on the unfamiliar bed, but Anna did not move far. John remained immobile, allowing her to move around him and then reflecting her motions as she allowed.
"I'm terrified." She whispered to the silence, the rhythm of his breathing convincing her he was asleep.
"Me too." His fingers wrapped her arm when she jumped. "I'm terrified I'll let you down, or fail you, or not be enough for you."
"How can you say those things?"
"Because you never quite heal from some things. You just learn to limp onward." His fingers intertwined with hers, the light from outside the window blending to an orange-blue-grey as the artificial light dimmed in inverse proportion to the threat of the sun on the horizon. "None of us are completely whole Anna. We're all broken in our own ways."
"I don't want to be broken anymore." She raised her head, seeing enough of his face to put her hand to his cheek without stabbing him in the eye with a stray finger. "I want to be whole again."
"Then let's stitch each other back together then?" He turned to kiss her palm, smiling at her. "Will you let me help stitch you back together?"
Anna could only nod and work herself back into the comforting circle of John's arms.
